Christie Dickason (1942-2025)

Christie Dickason wrote nine internationally published novels (Century, Random House, HarperCollins) as well as recent fiction for Young Adults, about outsiders. Established as a vivid and authoritative novelist of the 17th century, she also wrote a bestseller about the fall of the French in Indochina, The Dragon Riders (published in America and Germany as Indochine), which was also recommended reading for a 20th-century history course at an American university. Her novel about John Donne The Noble Assassin was shortlisted as the historical novel of the year by the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

As a poet she wrote many widely performed and recorded lyrics and libretti as well as several performance pieces that challenged definition, including a ‘green’ cantata for the Soil Association along with a book of associated poems. She was poet-celebrant for weddings, funerals and naming ceremonies. She also wrote many articles (for the Times and the Author, among others) and short stories.

To her writing and teaching, Christie Dickason brought wide-ranging experience: 14 years in theatre, including four years as director/choreographer with the RSC; writing and presenting for BBC Radio 4; climbing, including in Bolivia and the western highlands of Scotland; and living abroad in Thailand, Switzerland, America and Mexico. She earned honours degrees from Harvard (magna cum laude, phi beta kappa, Anne Radcliffe scholar) and Yale (Woodrow Wilson fellowship, Shubert memorial scholarship).